Crumbling
by alp crim
Summary: Postwar, Hermione’s sanity is crumbling, her pillar of hope having crumbled long ago. BZHG


  
**Title:** Crumbling.   
**Author:** alp crim. 

**Summary:** Postwar, Hermione's sanity is crumbling, her pillar of hope having crumbled long ago. (BZHG) 

**Pairing:** Blaise / Hermione.   
**Rating:** T. (death) 

**Genre:** Drama / Angst? I tried.   
**WARNINGS:** Written in a rush while I still had inspiration. Hope it's not too bad.   
**Note:** An amazing piece of work written by **Beringae** moved me to write this. It's called **The Nietzche Classes**, and startlingly intense. (DMHG) 

Never would she forget the sight of the closing battle. It would, in fact, return to haunt her dreams, dance through her nightmares, binding her throat and constricting her chest so firmly, so painfully that she didn't _want_ to breathe.

If she breathed, she would inhale it. She would smell it. She would catch wind of the newly-spilt blood, the odor, the pungent reek of that could only belong to the dead.

She didn't want to _see_. If she looked, if she stopped grinding her fists harshly into her crying eyes, she would see him. She would see him, once noble and proud and strong and stern, once engaging and flirtatious and witty and teasing. She would see him now reduced to no more than a body, a soulless, dull, decaying body that lie limply in the soft green grass.

Blaise Zabini.

A dark mop of delicately tousled curls and blue, blue eyes that were infinitely closed. He would not return, as he had promised. There would be no more lively banter, no more bouncy jokes and repartee. There would be no more fleeting touches and gentle looks. There would be nothing anymore.

_He's dead on the grass. He's as dead as Dumbledore, dead as Sirius and Neville and Luna and Cho, as Percy and Charlie and Snape and Tonks. He's so motionless, so limp. He's as lifeless as McGonagall and Sprout and Trelawney, as Hagrid and Sinistra and Viktor and Fleur and Diggory. _

"Hermione."

_Green and red and green and red. Green sparks, red flames, a stream of unholy and corrupted and tainted and tarnished green that shot everywhere, scorched everything, killing everyone she once knew. _

"Hermione, look at me."

_The world was on fire. It had to be. What else could explain the screams and shrieks and screeches and cries echoing shrilly through the air? _

_The sky was weeping. Rain was crashing down so hard against her back it felt like hail. Didn't the sky know that she was on the good side, the light side, the side that should've won without any loss of lives? _

_Why couldn't it understand that distinction instead of blurring her vision and bruising her with its heavy tears?_

"Please, Hermione. Please."

_The wind was howling and bawling and lamenting and grieving. Could it not understand the distinction either and merit her side with reprieve? _

"Come home, Hermione."

_They were _**supposed**_ to conquer the dark side, to win, to wipe Voldemort off the face of the world like nothing more than an ugly, superfluous smear. Isn't that what always happened in the fight of good-against-evil? _

_Weren't they _**supposed**_ to _**win**

"Hermione!"

Her eyes flew open. A sudden, jolting pain slammed its way through her head, taking a sledgehammer to what little sanity she had left. Her vision was dim and hazy, and she felt dampness on her brow … yet she still saw. She still felt.

_Green flashing by, by and by and by, again and again and again. Where was the order? Surely the light side had some semblance of stability._

_Right there._

_Green._

_Too close, yet not close enough to home. Green colliding into something so much more important._

"Oh, Merlin, Hermione."

_And suddenly he was falling at her side, all six feet of him, all mussed curls and stark blue eyes, all dead weight and wide eyes, a shocked expression forever mounted on his handsome face._

_His handsome, striking, gorgeous face. Patting his cheek, slapping his face, shaking his shoulders as she yelled and screamed and shouted at him. Why wouldn't he get up?_

_  
_Get up.

_Why wouldn't he look at her?_

Look at me.

_Why wouldn't he fucking MOVE?_

WHY?

_Why and why and why and why._

_Why were his eyes so blank? Why was he staring so blankly at the pouring sky? Why wasn't be blinking when the fat, pelting raindrops hit his eyes?_

_Why were his eyes so bloody fucking EMPTY?_

**slap.**

Hermione stared at Ginny, her face stinging. Harry and Ron stood behind her, two solid walls of unerring support. Protective, shielding Harry and loving, caring Ron … so familiar, but so far away.

Ginny stared back, beautiful, red-haired Ginny, her gaze riveted to the ugly, nasty, welting handprint leveled against glaringly pale skin. There were no apologies, no whispered regrets of '_I'm sorry_'.

The slap was needed.

It always was.

It grounded her to reality, effectively instructing what was present and what was past. It told her he was gone, that she was still here.

"He would've wanted you to live."

_Harry._

"He loved you, 'Mione."

_Ron._

Green and green and green, green and red and green.

Two colors.

Two _simple_ colors.

_Suddenly falling, curls and stark blue eyes, dead weight._

_Screaming, screeching, crying and shrieking._

_Raw anger._

_Pain._

_He's not moving._

_He's not blinking._

_He won't look at me._

_Why's he not looking at me?_

_Why …?_

_Why?_

_WHY?_

**slap.**

The slap was needed.

It always, always was.


End file.
